The Bishop’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

The health she asked for Domina Edith. Let her live, if it be your will. But for herself, peace to the heart, pacem cordium, peace…

  A touch on her shoulder brought her back. A little dazed, Frevisse raised her head to find Dame Perpetua leaning over the choir stall in front of her to reach her.

  It was difficult to judge each other’s ages in St. Frideswide’s, enveloped as they all were in the loose-fitted layers of the black Benedictine habit, only their faces showing in the surround of white wimples and black veils, with even then very little of their foreheads and nothing below the chin. But Frevisse guessed that Dame Perpetua was perhaps ten years older than herself, and so somewhere in her forties. She was a compactly built woman with a kind face and firm manner. Now, bound by the rule of silence, she smiled at Frevisse and made the hand gesture that meant the prioress, and another that asked Frevisse to come with her.

  The prioress’s parlor overlooked the inner yard and the guesthalls that flanked its gateway through three tall windows above a window seat made comfortable with brightly embroidered cushions. Because the prioress’s duties included receiving the occasional important visitors and conducting business mat could not be dealt with in the general chapter meetings, her quarters offered more comfort than the rest of the nunnery. There was a large, carved table covered by a woven Spanish tapestry, two chairs, and a fireplace, its flames crackling along a log to ward off the chill of this gray morning.

  Domina Edith’s own high-backed chair had been moved close to the hearth, and she sat there, wrapped in the fur-lined cloak she wore only upon the insistence of the infirmaress. It was drawn up to her chin and she was sunk down into it, smaller, it seemed to Frevisse, with each passing month. Just now, she might have been dozing, her chin deep into the folds of her wimple; but if she was, it was the light sleep of the aged. She lifted her head at Frevisse’s entering, her faded eyes alert under the wrinkled lids.

  “Dame Frevisse,” she said, and Frevisse curtsied to her. “Sit.” She gestured to the stool across the hearth from her.

  Frevisse sat and was immediately aware of the fire’s warmth on her cheeks. Her urge was to hold her hands out to it, too, but they were tucked decently up her sleeves, out of sight; it would be a luxury to bring them out.

  “There is a letter come for you.” Domina Edith nodded at Dame Perpetua, who had waited beside the table and now came forward with a folded, sealed piece of parchment in her hand.

  Frevisse had supposed Domina Edith wished to see her about some failure in her duties or to warn her against so much time spent alone in the church. Changing her attention to the letter, she took it, not recognizing the handwriting on its outside that directed it to Dame Frevisse Barrett, St. Frideswide’s Priory, near Banbury, Oxfordshire.

  “I fear it is bad news,” Domina Edith said softly.

  As she said it, Frevisse turned the letter over and recognized her uncle Thomas Chaucer’s seal imprint in the wax. But if it was his letter, then why had someone else written the address? That had never been his way before. Her hands beginning to tremble, because she knew he had been ill, Frevisse freed the seal and unfolded the letter, to find it was indeed written in her uncle’s familiar hand.

  “To my well-beloved niece, may this find you in health, I greet you well, with God’s blessing and mine. I am dying—”

  Frevisse drew her breath in sharply. All of her tightened with pain, and she fought to keep herself steady. The letter was brief and completely to the point, without any trace of his usual dry wit.

  “The disease that we hoped would draw off has indeed proved fatal after all. I would see you one more time, if God grants it and your good prioress allows your journey…” Frevisse’s tears fell down onto the paper, blotting the ink. With a harsh hand, she drove others from her eyes and read on. “If not, know I hold you dear and will remember you in heaven. Your uncle, Thomas Chaucer.”

  Already blind again with tears, Frevisse held the letter out to Domina Edith, it being the prioress’s right and duty—and in this case, necessity—to read whatever came to her nuns. She waited, hands pressed to her face to control her crying, until Domina Edith said with all kindness, “You will leave within the hour. May God bring you to him in time.”

  Chapter 3

  The cold day was drawn down to a thin line of sullen red, lowering in the west below the roiling, darkening clouds. It was as much brightness as the day had seen, but the rain had held off, and the wind with its cutting edge was at their backs now as the four riders covered the last stretch of road, down into the valley with its village and the cluster of walls and buildings that was Ewelme Manor and the end of their journey.

  They were already too late. They had learned in the last village before this that Chaucer had died. “Yesterday,” a man had said. “Aye, yesterday. We heard the bell tolling. Carried on the wind, it was. And then today we heard for certain sure that it was over for him. God keep him.”

  So all their haste now was to escape the bitter cold and harsh wind; after two days of winter riding those were reasons enough. The small lake between the village and the manor house had a froth of whitecaps, and the tall elms around it soughed and bent their bare limbs in black, tossing patterns against the moving sky.

  Ewelme’s outer gates still stood open, with torches burning in the brackets to either side. As the riders came into the courtyard, grooms ran out from the stables, and there were hands to hold the horses and help the riders down.

  Frevisse, dismounting stiff and clumsy with cold, looked among the grooms for a face she recognized. Ewelme was where she thought of when she thought of home; she had been part of her uncle’s household for the eight final years of her girlhood.

  But she had been gone too many years, it seemed. No one was familiar, including the short gentleman who, as the horses were led away, bobbed up under the travelers’ noses, looking in each of their faces to determine who led their party. Even allowing for the layers of clothing and the cloak he was bundled in, he was a round-bodied man, and he bounced and jounced on the balls of his feet like a water-filled pig’s bladder to show how eager he was to serve.

  “Yes, yes, welcome! It’s going to be a cruel night, indeed it is. So you’re very welcome to shelter here. Of course you are. But you know, perhaps, we’re a house bereaved. We can offer shelter, certainly, but—”

  “I’m Master Chaucer’s niece,” Frevisse cut in curtly. “He sent for me. Before he died,” she added, to be spared being told again that she was too late.

  “Oh. Oh.” The little man registered true distress. He was inches shorter than she was and cricked his neck sideways to see up to her face. “You heard on the way, then! How cruel, how distressing! My deepest sympathy!” He looked around at her companions. Dame Perpetua stood beside her; it was unthinkable a nun would travel without another nun for propriety’s sake. And beyond them were the two burly men the priory steward had chosen from the priory’s stables to accompany them. Given the times and season, any traveler with sense went well guarded if possible.

  The little man seemed about to deal with one of the men, anticipating that the women might collapse into hysterical grief at any moment. But Frevisse was too tired and cold, and aware that Dame Perpetua was, as well, to waste time in displays of grief. Tersely, taking the situation in hand, she said, “Let my men be seen to in the stables, if that is convenient.” The little man nodded, blinking rapidly at this display of authority. Frevisse did not give him a chance to speak his agreement, but turned to the priory men and directed, “Return to St. Frideswide’s tomorrow. We’ll be here for I don’t know how long, but if it’s to be more than a fortnight, we’ll send word. When we’re free to return, my aunt will arrange escort for us, surely.”

  She looked at the little man for confirmation. He bobbed his head emphatically. “Oh, surely, surely,” he agreed.

  “Then Dame Perpetua and I would be most grateful to go inside.”

  “Surely, surely.”

  As the two priory men bowed awkwar
dly and began to follow one of the grooms toward the stables, Dame Perpetua said, “God grant you a good night’s rest.”

  Ashamed she had forgotten that simple courtesy, Frevisse added hastily, “And a safe journey home.”

  The men bowed again, in a hurry to be away to shelter and food. Frevisse and Dame Perpetua gave themselves over to the little man’s guidance.

  Ewelme was a moated manor house. As they crossed the bridge from the outer yard after the little man, the wind caught at them again, colder than before. But there were servants standing ready to hold the doors open, and on the little man’s heels they came out of the wind and darkness into a passage where elaborate wooden screens averted the drafts that had come in with them. Beyond the passage was the great hall that was the heart and gathering place of the house. It was full of torchlight and the sounds of trestle tables being set up. “Nearly supper time,” the man explained, as if they would not know this. “Now…” He hesitated. Apparently he had not decided what to do about them in the time from the stable yard to here. Should it be food and warmth first? Or ought they to be taken to Mistress Chaucer right away? Or…

  Frevisse thought he must be one of her aunt’s choices for office; her uncle had always expected quick-witted competence and dignity from those who directly served him. Impatiently, and instantly displeased at herself for it, she said, “I want to see my uncle. And Dame Perpetua wants a warm fire to sit beside until it’s time to eat. I’m sure Aunt Matilda will want to know that we’ve arrived.”

  “Yes, yes, that seems the best way,” the man agreed. “Your uncle is in the chapel, my lady. If you’ll come with me…

  “I know the way. See to Dame Perpetua.”

  Dame Perpetua gave her a grateful, shivering smile and nod. She was a good traveler, not given to complaint and grateful for whatever comforts came her way, but she had reached the end of her endurance and needed warmth and a place to sit. She followed the little man away.

  There was no warmth in the chapel, though the many candles around the coffin gave the illusion of it. Frevisse paused in the doorway, shivering, remembering when Aunt Matilda had agitated for a fireplace in here… “There, along the outer wall. It would be no trouble at all to have it built.” But Chaucer had answered, “We come here for the good of our souls, not the comforting of our bodies.” And though he had had no objection to comforting his body at another time and place with all the luxuries his considerable fortune could afford, he had held firm about the chapel. There was no fireplace, and chill seemed to breathe from its stones.

  But he had been lavish in its decorations. The main worshipping for the household was done in the village church, where the funeral and burial would be held. The chapel was meant solely for private family devotions, and the household priest’s daily mass, and was as gracefully complex and elegant as a saint’s reliquary. The ceiling was painted heaven’s blue and spangled with stars; the elaborately carved and gilded wood reredos behind the altar reached to them; and though now the altar was covered in black cloth rather than its usual embroidered richness, a long stretch of woven carpet in jewel-bright reds and blues and greens reached from it down the altar steps and the length of the chapel floor almost to the door. The side walls were painted with saints standing each by the other in a flowery mead, smiling benignly down on those who came to pray, while the rear wall was brilliant with the Virgin being crowned in heaven while saints and angels joyfully watched.

  Seeing the Virgin, Frevisse could hear her uncle singing lightly, “Had the apple not been taken, taken been, Then would not Our Lady have been crowned heaven’s queen, heaven’s queen…” as he had done the day he had explained all the meanings in the picture to her, when she was small and newly come to Ewelme and still wary of its strangeness.

  Now his coffin was set on trestles in front of the altar, with two priests and two servants of the household kneeling among the candles around it, their prayers a small, sibilant murmur in the quiet. Until he was buried, he would never be left unattended.

  Frevisse went forward silently until she could see his face. The candlelight gave it a warmth it no longer truly had, and as was so usual with the peaceful dead, he looked to be only sleeping. But it would never again be any use for her to think, Remember this, to tell him when he comes to visit next. Or hope, in this world, to talk and argue with him, or hear his laughter.

  Frevisse found the pain of her grief still too raw and unfamiliar to bear. She dropped her eyes, knelt where she was, and began her prayers for his soul’s safety and rest. She had prayed so much these past months, against her thick misery of doubts and a different kind of grief, that the prayers came with instinctive ease and no need to grope for words.

  Lost in her prayers and grief, she was unaware of any movement around her until a hand briefly touched her shoulder and someone said, “You had best come to supper now. Your aunt will want to see you as soon as may be.”

  She became aware that the stone under the carpet was pressing hard on her knees, and that around her there was a shifting and murmur as those who had been praying gave over their places to those come to replace them. Her face was warm and wet with tears, and she had no idea how long she had been there. There was no hope of hiding that she had been crying, and she did not try as she lifted her head to the man standing beside her.

  She recognized him as one of the priests who had been praying beside the coffin when she entered. He had the drawn look of someone who had been praying for an uncomfortably long while; but there was the sheen behind his weariness that told how rich his praying had been.

  She let him take her elbow and help her rise, not questioning how he knew who she was. Chaucer’s niece, the nun, had been expected. And she was hungry. Broken out of her prayers, she was suddenly aware of all her body’s discomforts, with hunger for food and warmth very strong among them.

  “Thank you,” she said. With her hands tucked into her sleeves and her head down, she followed him not back to the great hall where most of the household would dine, but aside and up the stairs to her aunt’s parlor.

  Frevisse had spent countless uncomfortable hours there in her girlhood, learning and working the intricate, eternal embroideries and stitchery considered a suitable occupation for a lady, and listening to her aunt talk. Aunt Matilda always talked, to Frevisse, to her women, sometimes to the empty air. Aunt Matilda was fond of talk, and that had been the original reason Frevisse had sought the refuge of her uncle’s relatively quiet company, among his work and books. Later, love of what those books held had been the stronger motive. Her uncle had been far better company than her aunt; he listened as much as he talked, and his mind ranged through all the learning and lessons he had gathered into his library and his life. Aunt Matilda had thought Frevisse’s choice very unladylike, of course, but since dear Thomas allowed it, she had been willing to let it be.

  Aside from her boredom, Frevisse remembered her aunt’s parlor as a lovely room, well-proportioned and high-ceilinged, with ample windows to fill it with light even on cloudy days. It looked out on the moat with its swans and, in summer, the green reaches of the park. With her own inherited wealth and her husband’s constantly growing fortune, Aunt Matilda had furnished it with every comfort. And though tonight the shutters were closed across the windows, top and bottom, shadows were banished to the lowest, farthest corners by lamps burning on every flat surface, all around the room. Their rich, steady light gleamed on the painted patterns of the shutters and ceiling beams, and caught among the bright threads of the wall-hung tapestries. Braziers glowed in the corners, warming the room, and it was so crowded with people that in the first moments of her arrival, Frevisse failed to recognize anyone.

  Then she saw her aunt. Richly gowned and veiled in black, she was seated at the room’s far end, in front of the brightest tapestry. On her right, in another chair, sat a younger woman in equally rich black whom Frevisse guessed was her daughter Alice, so mat the man seated beyond her was undoubtedly Alice’s latest husband, W
illiam de la Pole, the earl of Suffolk.

  The identity of the man seated to Aunt Matilda’s left was more problematical. For a moment, unable to have clear view of him among the crowded shift of people in the room, Frevisse could not even guess who he might be. But then she saw him clearly. A churchman by the severe cut of his floor-length black gown and the priest’s cap he wore to cover his tonsure. But even the length of the room away, she knew he was anything but a plain churchman; he held himself like a prince, and quite abruptly she realized who he was, though she had seen him no more than twice in her girlhood. Cardinal Bishop Beaufort of Winchester. A prince of the Church indeed, and doing the family great honor by his presence.

  Then Aunt Matilda, whose eye was ever as busy as her tongue, saw her, broke off whatever condolences she had been receiving, and, rising from her chair with an exclamation, surged toward her, arms extended. “Frevisse, my dear! My precious dear!” She was a tall woman, comfortably plump in her middle age. Her black veiling, enough for half a dozen women, drifted and fell about them both as she wrapped her arms around Frevisse and held her close. “I knew you would be too late; he went so suddenly at the end, almost as soon as the letter was sent. I don’t know what I shall do without him, what any of us shall do without him. But you’re here. Bless you, my dear.”